Civil parking enforcement

These statistics show the use of civil parking enforcement (CPE) powers by local authorities in England. They cover the number of penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued, challenged and cancelled, and the number of penalty charges paid.

The data are derived from the Department’s annual survey of local authorities with CPE powers, which allows authorities to enforce parking regulations without recourse to criminal court proceedings. The number of authorities with such powers in England (outside London) has increased from 28 in 2000 to 236 in 2009/10. This means simple trend analysis will not give a true ‘like for like’ comparison over time.

Notes and guidance

Data are collected for the most recent two years of CPE activity, with the earlier year included to obtain an improved retrospective picture of challenges and cancellations of PCNs issued. However, it remains possible that late or amended returns from local authorities could alter the underlying data.

Data provided by local authorities can vary in quality between authorities and from year to year. They use different systems to record the data and follow different practices. This means that some authorities have been unable to provide responses for all questions in the survey. Data at local authority level is therefore currently outside the scope of National Statistics.

Where no data are available, imputation is used to produce aggregate totals for key variables. On occasion, imputations can be improved and minor revisions to back data can be made as a result, although substantive trends are rarely affected.

National Statistics

Figures relating to England as a whole, or regional level, are National Statistics. However, the local authority level figures are currently not National Statistics, for the reasons outlined above.

These statistics are due to be assessed by the UK Statistics Authority in 2012.

Pre-release access lists

These lists detail the post-holders that are given pre-release access for up to 24 hours prior to release.